The Development of Offending

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Abstract
This article briefly reviews some historical approaches to the development of offending over time and stresses the conceptualization of developmental criminology. It emphasizes the study of within-individual changes in offending over time and the study of causal factors that may explain onset, escalation, deescalation, and desistance in individuals' offending. In particular, a better understanding of individual differences in criminal careers can help to explain why some youths become involved in delinquency only marginally and others more deeply, and which groups of individuals start to desist in crime at which part of the life cycle. Developmental criminology is relevant for applied criminal justice for several reasons: (a) the formulation of developmental theories, (b) the study of individuals rather than of variables, and (c) decisions about which behaviors to target for intervention and when to intervene.